Cisco AS5300 - Best Value for Voice or Dialup Service

The AS5300 is probably the most successful voice and data access server/gateway in history. It's well known 2U profile, with 3 expansion slots, must be hardware-provisioned with specific hardware to build either a VOIP/voice or dialup unit - the voice and data hardware is physically different.

The AS5300 can be configured with single or dual/redundant AC or DC power supplies, and typically is configured with 128MB DRAM (maximum possible) and 16MB Flash (32MB possible). There are two ethernet ports - one 10, and one 10/100. While supporting the same protocols and codecs as its newer brothers above, the AS5300 uses different component cards. The three slot chassis can accept a 4PRI or 8PRI trunk card in the lowest slot Data/fax gateway are typically configured for 96 or 192 dialup modem ports for T1 environments and for 120 or 240 ports for E1 environments. When configured for voice service, T1 units can be designed to have 24, 48, or 96 voice ports, and E1 units can have 30, 60, or 120 voice ports.

While official Cisco support for the AS5300 has come to an end, and software releases end with version 12.3.x. However, the AS5300 is so widely used that a huge base of repair equipment and 3rd party technical support should be available into the foreseeable future. The highly modular nature of the AS5300 makes repair exceptionally easy, and its wide deployment makes replacement card availability relatively inexpensive and easy to get. Continue reading »